Miranda Lambert has set the release date, title and tracklist for her first album under a new deal with Republic Records. Postcards From Texas will be released on September 13, and in the meantime, fans of the country star can get their hands on “Alimony,” a track released to coincide with the album's release on Wednesday.
The 14-track album was self-produced by Lambert with her frequent collaborator and fellow Texan Jon Randall; she contributed to ten tracks, but the album's final song is a David Allen Coe classic: “Living on the Run” from the country outlaw hero's 1976 album “Longhaired Redneck.”
“Alimony” was co-written by Lambert with two of country music’s most sought-after songwriters, Shane McAnally and Natalie Hemby, as was another song with a distinctly Texas theme, “Looking Back on Luckenbach.”
The chorus of “Alimony” is a classic country-style wordplay that also expresses the Lone Star character. The singer jokingly warns her husband (presumably not Lambert's real-life husband): “When you start to drop out / Only one thing can comfort me / When you leave me in San Antone / Think about the alimony.” (That's like “Remember the Alamo,” for anyone who's forgotten.)
Postcards From Texas is Lambert's first album with Republic after a long, two-decade-long collaboration with Sony Nashville. One might see it as a chance for the singer-songwriter to do things more her way, if she hadn't already obviously done so with her last Sony album, 2022's Palomino, which was also co-produced by her and Randall (along with Luke Dick).
“Alimony” is the third track from the new album, but the first to focus more on the project as a whole, following the currently charting single “Wranglers” and another album song, “Dammit Randy.” Lambert spoke about how “Alimony” came about in a release announcement, mentioning the oft-mentioned fact that “my parents were private investigators in Dallas, Texas, who worked a lot of divorce cases in upscale parts of town, so it wasn't hard to write. I'd heard about it my whole life.”
Lambert said, “We were out in my barn. I was showing Shane and Natalie the horses and asked him if he had any other songs. He said he did and I said, 'What is it? Because your last one was 'Looking Back on Luckenbach' and I didn't think you could top that.' He said, 'So when you leave me in San Antone, think of the Alamo-neeeee…'” Natalie and I said, 'All right, Shane! Stop showing off.' We went back into the house and got the guitars and I specifically said, 'I want a shuffle, man.' I love shuffle so much and this record needed a shuffle! I knew I wanted one in my set because I hadn't done one in a long time — and everybody loves shuffle… We intentionally used every Texas metaphor we could think of; we wanted to take something pretty shitty and put some humor back into it. I mean, the guy gets off pretty easy just moving back in with his mom.”
In an interview with Variety in May, when “Wranglers” was released, Lambert shared some thoughts on the upcoming album. Although the previous album had a bit of a Texas feel, there was a difference in the way the new album was created, she said.
“I made that record in Texas, and it meant everything to me,” she said. I hadn't made a record in Texas since I was 18, my independent album. So I went there with Jon Randall, who's my partner in Big Loud Texas. [a label she has created to sign new artists] and my songwriting buddy and one of my best friends in the world, and he co-produced it with me. I just felt like I was finally home. That's how I feel on the label; that's how I feel when I recorded it in Texas. And this music really reflects what made me the artist that I am. I think it's pretty honky-tonk, which I'm very excited about. Lots of steel guitar on it.”
She also spoke at the time about why she switched labels. Lambert is one of the few country artists signed directly to Republic (Shania Twain is another), but in a deal that leverages that label's prolific relationship with Big Loud Records to market her to her traditional audience.
“Honestly, I really wanted to take my time to find the right family and the right time,” Lambert said of signing a new deal with the Lipman brothers. “I mean, 20 years is a long time to be in one place. And a lot of good things happened there; I spent my career at one label. But sometimes it's time to move on and do something different. You know, I met with everybody because I love Nashville and the people here, and I wanted to talk to all my friends that I've met in the business. But Republic just felt like something fresh, with new ideas and a different approach. Since I've been doing this for 21 years now, I'm all about fresh ideas. There's a whole different world out there now than there was when I first started releasing music, to now.
“So I thought I could learn a lot from a New York-based label, to be honest,” she continued, “and try to develop my career and do it in a different way than I've done before. And I was already with Big Loud doing Big Loud Texas. And having them as my Nashville family along with Republic is like a dream. It's two great teams working on my music and there's this fresh energy and that just gives me even more fire. I'm so ready to finish music and get it out there and get to work because that's what I do. And after finishing (a stint in) Vegas and then leaving Sony and making a new record, it just feels like a fresh start.”
Tracklist of “Postcards From Texas”:
- Armadillo (Aaron Raitiere, Jon Decious, Park Twomey)
- Damn, Randy (Miranda Lambert, Brendan McLoughlin, Jon Randall)
- Review of Luckenbach (Miranda Lambert, Shane McAnally, Natalie Hemby)
- Santa Fe with Parker McCollum (Miranda Lambert, Jesse Frasure, Jessie Jo Dillon, Dean Dillon)
- January Heart (Brent Cobb, Neil Medley)
- Wranglers (Audra Mae, Evan McKeever, Ryan Carpenter)
- Run (Miranda Lambert)
- Maintenance (Miranda Lambert, Natalie Hemby, Shane McAnally)
- I hate love songs (Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall)
- No Man's Land (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick)
- Bitch on the Sauce (Miranda Lambert, Jaren Johnston)
- Far too good at breaking my heart (Miranda Lambert, Jon Randall, Jesse Frasure, Jenee Fleenor)
- Wildfire (Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall)
- Life on the Run (David Allen Coe, Jimmy L. Howard)
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